Wanted to do a mini-sequence, featuring 2 gundams fighting and it turns out to be the most ambitious personal project. It's a lot of work, all of the assets has to be build from the ground up.
I scheduled the project length for 3 months, but i think it might take me bit longer than that.
Current process: 30%
Stage: Lookdev
OVERVIEW
Before I start the whole thing, I grab the base meshes online and quickly did a previz. Just to get an idea of what assets I need to build and what level of detail I need for the texture and models.
Assets
From the previz, I know I will need a fairly detailed Gundam model, and a less detailed Zaku model. The environment will have a fairly large area to be build in 3D and dmp for mainly the sky.
Final mesh wireframe (subdivided)
For it being a mech, it gotta have panel lines and some small-medium details to make it look realistic.
I divide the modelling process into 3 levels of detail:
- LOD1: the base shape
- LOD2: the medium to small concave and convex shapes
- LOD3: Panel lines (I did it as a texture, because it's gonna be a nightmare to model every single line)
Above I rendered the model in 4 angles and initially used photoshop to plan out where the details gonna be as I find it as a faster workflow for me. (Gray as level, White as convex and Dark gray as concave shapes).
Below are the 19 UDIM tiles of panel line details (LOD3). I sketch out the panel lines again in Substance Painter. And it turns out to be the easiest way, almost thought I should've do that right away. However, I didn't finalize the panelline in substance, instead I export the diffuse maps and use them as a guide to perfect the lines in Illustrator.
for them being 19 2k artboards, I almost reach the limit for the maximum Illustrator project resolution.
Panelline (vector file in Adobe Illustrator)
Panelline sketch (Substaince Painter)
Once the Panel lines are done, I export them as black-white image files, and use them as baseColor multiply and height maps in substance painter. And start texturing from there.
The result are not perfect, but it is defiantly promising and works very well for medium closeup shots.
I also made a google sheet to track my progress and tried to daily every day. it's actually one of the crucial part for me to know how much time it actually take for me for every stage of the process.
I could've use shotgun, but I don't want to pay for it and google sheet is pretty efficient for a personal project.
COMP PLAYGROUND
After finishing the lookdev for one of the asset, being a comper at heart, I did a quick comp right away
To be CONTINUED .....